A House in the Country: A Tale of Psychological Horror

by Matt Shaw

  “You’re an asshole,” she said - her voice was low.

  “Well - that’s a maybe but I’m the only sane one here right now.”

  Jess stood up and walked from the room, leading both daughters away. Dean stormed over to the door and slammed it shut. He returned to the couch and sat down heavily on it. This was supposed to be the next stage of their content family life and yet the whole thing was going to shit. And to think - it wasn’t long ago that Jess was hinting at wanting another child. He sat there, desperately trying to figure out where it had started to go wrong and - more importantly - how to fix it. He couldn’t put the house on the market. The ink wasn’t even dry on the contracts yet. He couldn’t just sell up and move out again. Besides, these problems were nothing to do with the house. Maybe they’d flared up from the moving and general stress involved with that but it wasn’t the house. There’s no such thing as ghosts and houses don’t hold into past memories. They’re just brick and mortar. They don’t store karma - whether it’s good or bad. It doesn’t work like that. He looked down at the piece of paper and the numbers listed upon it. His mind was telling him there’d be no shame in seeking help for all of them, though. An outsider who could listen to their problems and help guide them back to the happy family they once were. He felt a little embarrassed at not being able to fix the issues himself but clearly things were getting out of hand. Despite the harsh words he sometimes used when he spoke to Jess - he didn’t want to lose her. He didn’t want to lose any of them. If they needed to speak to a stranger then so be it.

  He reached across to the telephone and started to dial the telephone number situated at the top of the list. Whatever it takes - he was determined to keep both his family and their new home.

  With the number dialled, he pressed the handset to his ear and listened as it began to ring.

  * * * * *

  “I’m sorry,” Dean was the first to apologise as he walked into the spare bedroom where Jess was still tidying up from the previous day. Her eyes looked as though she’d been crying all morning. “Where are the girls?” Dean asked when Jess didn’t acknowledge his apology.

  “Outside.”

  Dean walked over to the window and looked out. The girls were playing in the garden; running around and laughing. Dean smiled. The image below was what he’d imaged it to be like before they moved in; the girls running around with room to play, the pair of them smiling and laughing as they enjoyed themselves.

  “Look at them,” he pointed out of the window for Jess’ benefit. She didn’t move from her spot near the corner of the room, “Please?” he begged. Reluctantly she stood up and joined Dean at the window. “Look at them out there. They look happy, don’t they?” Jess didn’t answer. “You know - this is what I imagined it to be like when we were waiting to move in. No arguments, just joy. Happiness.” Jess didn’t say anything. She wiped a remaining tear from her cheek. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” he pressed her, trying to get her to talk. She nodded. “I am sorry for earlier,” he continued. “It’s just - I wanted this to work out so badly for us, you know? I wanted us to be happy here. I thought we would be. Never imagined we’d be arguing the way we are right now anyway…”

  “Me neither.”

  “Pretty stupid,” he said. “I’ll try and fix things. I’ll try and make things better but this is our home now. We need to make the house work. I know you said you don’t feel safe here but everything is just getting blown out of proportion; no doubt because of the stress of moving and what’s going on with Sophie. But - this room - what happened; we spoke about it. We were both fine with it and I don’t understand the sudden turn around you’re having.”

  “I just feel like we’re always being watched,” Jess admitted. “I don’t feel comfortable here. I know it’s silly but I can’t shake the feeling that - everywhere we go - there are eyes on us.”

  “Look, hows about we unpack, we decorate this room and make it our own, we see the counsellor - as a family - and then, if you’re still not satisfied that there’s nothing wrong with the house…Then we’ll look at putting it back on the market and finding somewhere else to live. Is that fair?” Jess didn’t answer. “Come on, please, I’m trying really hard to make this work here. You need to work with me, please. What do you say? I promise, after speaking to the counsellor and sorting this room out, if you’re not happy we’ll move…Yeah?” Jess nodded. She didn’t look as though she was entirely convinced but Dean didn’t care. She still nodded and that was better than nothing. “And I think I’ve found us a counsellor,” he explained. “It only took most of the morning but there’s one - not too far from here - who is able to see us in the morning if you’re interested? I took the appointment just in case you said yes but - if you don’t want to - I can always call them and cancel?”

  “We should go,” Jess said.

  Dean nodded, “Fine - whatever you want.” Nearly whatever she wanted anyway. She wanted to move out. She wanted to go back to their old home, even though it belonged to someone else now, but she couldn’t have that. “So,” he hesitated, “am I forgiven? Could I get a hug?” Jess looked at him. She knew they’d both been stupid about the situation. They’d both over reacted. Dean continued, “And - maybe - as the kids are outside…Maybe I could get a blow job?” Jess laughed.

  “You’re such an asshole!” she said. Her outburst didn’t matter this time - not all the time she was smiling about it. Her words didn’t come with the venom presented earlier. Dean smiled and leant in for a sneaky kiss of her cheek. A second later and he put his arms around her, holding her close to his body with their two children playing in the garden beyond the window.

  A happy family.

  “Come on,” he said as they continued their hug, “let’s go outside.”

  “What about the room?” Jess asked.

  “What about it? It’s not going anywhere. Just leave the window open to try and air the smell of paint and leave it. Family time is more important. These days won’t last forever,” he reminded her. One minute your child is your baby, the next they’re running around as teenagers and then - before you know it - they’ve moved out and are starting a family of their own. Dean didn’t want to miss any of it. He took Jess by the hand and walked her from the bedroom and down the stairs.

  Night Seven

  The rest of the day had been spent playing in the sunny garden - running around playing tag and kicking one of the plastic footballs - and was concluded with a nice barbecue; although it had to be cooked in the kitchen as they didn’t actually possess a proper outdoors barbecue due to the lack of room in their last home. Despite the rocky start to the morning, the day was filled with laughter and smiles. At least - it was until it came for the girls to go to bed. Neither of them wanted to go up, despite being allowed to stay up half an hour later than their usual bedtime.

  The usual routine of putting them to bed went along the lines of telling them to go to the bathroom (making sure they went to the toilet) to brush their teeth and then to say goodnight to each other (and their parents) before heading off to their own rooms. Sometimes, rarely, Sophie would ask for a bedtime story. Tonight - for the first time in as long as Dean could remember - both girls requested a story. Jess offered to read for Caroline after Dean said he’d read for Sophie first and then Caroline but their eldest daughter refused her mother’s offer. She wanted her dad to read it to her and became teary at the possibility of him not doing so.

  “It’s fine. I’ll do it,” Dean had told Jess.

  It upset Jess, from time to time, when the girls always requested their father. Sophie called out for him when she cried - it was always her father she wanted and now Jess wasn’t even good enough to read a story to her eldest child. When she had mentioned it a while back to Dean - he had told her it was because he was always stuck at work so - in their eyes - wasn’t around as much. His words made sense but - occasionally - it still bothered Jess. She cooked for them, she cleaned for them - would it really have hurt to be as
ked to read for them from time to time too? Tonight was one of those nights she felt unappreciated.

  “You can make me feel loved when you’re done,” she had told Dean with a cheeky smile on her face. He knew what she’d meant and couldn’t help but smile too. As he climbed the stairs, to where his girls waited in their bedrooms, he wondered how fast he could get the individual readings done. Hopefully in record breaking speed, he thought, so he could venture off to satisfy his wife’s needs.

  * * * * *

  Dean closed the book and put it on the floor next to Caroline’s bed.

  “I think that’s enough for tonight,” he told her. She’d chosen Swallows and Amazons and there was no way he was about to read the whole thing to her in one night, despite her pleas for him to continue. “We’ll read some more tomorrow,” he told her. “In fact - you can read it to me,” he suggested. Not just because it saved his voice and saved him the embarrassment of doing the various voices but because it happened to be good practice for her too. He leaned across to her and gave her a kiss on the forehead, “Nighty-night!” She didn’t respond. Dean stood up and walked to the door. He reached for the light-switch.

  “Please don’t die, daddy.”

  Dean froze. He didn’t quite know how to respond. It was clear that Caroline was upset and immediately he realised why she’d wanted him to read to her as opposed to Jess. She wanted to cram in as much time with her dad as humanly possible. Clearly Sophie’s conversation had upset Caroline more than she had let on. Dean walked back across the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Promise me,” Caroline continued.

  “Honey - we all go up to Heaven I’m afraid so I can’t promise you that. But what I can promise you is that it won’t be for a really, really long time, okay?” Caroline had tears in her eyes - clearly on the verge of crying.

  “So not tonight then, okay?”

  Her words alarmed Dean but he tried his best not to show it and tried to comfort her some more, “You know - as I told your sister - if you have a bad dream…They tend to work in reverse. So all the bad stuff you dream about actually turns out to be good things. If you dreamt of me dying tonight - I’m actually going to die in years to come.”

  “But what if I didn’t dream it?” she asked. Fear on her face.

  “Then it’s all in your head and you’re being silly for no reason,” Dean smiled at her.

  “It’s not in my head though. I was told you were going to die tonight,” Caroline started to cry.

  “By whom? Your sister?”

  Caroline shook her head.

  “Who?”

  “I’m not allowed to say. If I tell anyone then mummy will die too…”

  “What? You’re being stupid. Who has been saying all this?”

  Caroline stopped crying. Her eyes went wide with fear. Something over Dean’s shoulder had caught her attention. She pointed, “He told me!”

  Dean frowned. Slowly he turned around to face the direction Caroline was pointing. There, just a few feet behind him, a man stood with a knife in his hand. Before Dean could say anything the man took a step forward and swiped at his throat with the tip of the blade. The blade cut through Dean’s skin as though it were a hot knife through butter. Blood sprayed across the room as a major artery was cut right through. Dean grabbed his throat and fell off the bed, onto the floor where he started to try and crawl towards the door, away from his attacker. Caroline wanted to scream out loud but didn’t dare. She remembered the man’s threat and - more importantly - the conversation they’d had the previous night. He was going to look after her. He was going to be her new daddy. They’d be one happy family. Him, the two girls and Jess. But if they dared to tell anyone about his nightly visits, then both their current daddy and their mummy would have to die. The man stepped over Dean’s body and shut the bedroom door to stop any unwanted attention coming their way. He raised his finger to his mouth and shushed Caroline quiet.

  “Ssh, it’s okay…” He walked over to her and sat on the bed. Caroline didn’t move. She was rooted to the spot. The man leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Daddy’s here now,” the man whispered.

  * * * * *

  Jess walked up the stairs towards her bedroom to prepare herself for Dean; a quick shower and the opportunity to slip into something a little less uncomfortable. As she walked past the spare room she couldn’t help but notice the strong smell of paint. She peered into the room and noticed the window was closed. She walked in - to open it - and stopped dead when she realised the cupboard was open. Not just that but a light too - coming from the ceiling in there. She walked across the room to investigate, stepping around the (now dry) puddles of paint and opened the cupboard wider. Her heart skipped a beat. Inside the cupboard, there was no ceiling. Just a hole where it should have been. A hole which lead straight through to the attic space. A light shone down from the space.

  “What the hell?”

  She used the shelving unit on the back wall of the cupboard to clamber up high enough to see into the attic. Her heart skipped another beat when she realised what she was looking at in the far corner of the room; some kind of shrine built up around pictures of a woman. Next to that, she saw there was a mattress - surrounded by food wrappers. Two buckets in the corner of the room. She pulled herself up into the loft to get a closer look. As she walked across to what appeared to be a ‘living space’ she noticed several heavy weights had been left on top of the loft hatch. No wonder Dean hadn’t been able to open it. She didn’t look into the buckets. She didn’t need to. As she approached, the smell hit her hard. They were full of waste. She gagged. A closer look at the shrine and she noticed random scribblings on post-it notes stuck to various different pictures of the woman. Notes which spelt out how sorry someone was, how much he loved her. She knew instantly it belonged to the previous owner. He’d been living in the attic all this time? She ran back towards the hole in the cupboard ceiling and carefully dropped down the various shelves until she was back in the spare room again.

  “Dean!” she called out.

  She ran through, across the landing, to Sophie’s room and stopped dead. Her daughters were standing at the other end of the landing, next to Caroline’s room. They both look petrified. A strange man - the previous owner? - was standing between them with his arms around them. In his hand was a bloody knife.

  “Hi, honey!” he said. He smiled. “I hope you don’t mind but I thought the kids could stay up a little later tonight. Was thinking about putting on a midnight snack or something. Don’t know about you but I am absolutely starving.” He turned to the girls. “By the way - we’ve been talking and I’m not sure their names suit them. I think we should call them Beth and Gloria…” He turned to the girls, “What do you think? You like those names?” They didn’t say anything. They just stood there, trapped in his embrace, with tears running down their faces. He turned to Jess, “And - I hope you don’t mind - I was hoping I could call you Cathy?”

  Jess screamed.

  T H E E N D